


the phoenix and the fire

by haarucchii



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Happy Birthday Terushima Yuuji, Humor, Johzenji Team Dynamics, M/M, Sex Jokes, aka johzenji boys goofing off, you beautiful trash bag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6612403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haarucchii/pseuds/haarucchii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most likely the best, and maybe worst, birthday Terushima Yuuji has had so far. </p><p>(Excluding his birthday party when he was seven, and his magnificent idea to use his brother as the theme. There were pin the glasses on the Onii-chan, a pinata with his brother's face- even the cake was his brother's face. In revenge, his brother dedicated Yuuji's 15th birthday to posting bad pictures of him through the course of five years.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the phoenix and the fire

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i love johzenji i love ushiteru but i just wrote this on a whim but now its just about 3k ish i cannot believe my eyes
> 
> also, happy (belated) birthday teru. 4/20 blaze it. 
> 
> (unedited)

This year hasn’t been the best for Yuuji. It wasn’t like he didn’t have the best boyfriend, or that his teammates finally let him talk during practices instead of looking up pictures of said boyfriend and showing it in the midst of his speeches (they bet on which picture would get Yuuji hard just by looking at it)-- no, it was the fact that his homework had been piling up because he never got calculus and that English homework required him to talk in a full conversation with an American foreigner in English.

Also, because it was the night before his birthday and his boyfriend is halfway across the world because he was so _stupidly_ good at volleyball- enough to be in the best universities in Japan for volleyball and currently playing a tournament in America. He hates this.

(“You can always apply there,” Wakatoshi says to him, but Yuuji only replies with a paper of his grades and bruised arms.

“Toshi, I only have two good things about my entire being, and that’s literally my ass and my tongue piercing. One of which might have to be forcefully removed because my manager won’t let me wear it on the job, it’s not my ass, by the way.” He exclaims, ignoring the way his boyfriend subtly looked around him and stared down, nodding with his lips pursed out in approval. “Anyways! Neither of those include good volleyball skills, though Haru and I are honestly magic on the court- no offence babe, you know I love you.”

“I love you too,” Wakatoshi replies, Yuuji grins and grabs his hand, squeezing it tightly.

“Anyways, I honestly don’t think I have the ability to go to a school that is top 10 in Japan in both sports and academics. I also have to watch over my nerdy older brother, so I’m probably going to stay here in Miyagi. It also has a good program in mechanics, and you know I want to go into that.”

“I do know.”

“Anyways,” Yuuji squeezes Wakatoshi’s hand once again for reassurance, and the latter responds the same way. “I think you and I both know that I can’t go to where you are going, but it doesn’t mean we can’t date, right?”

Wakatoshi smiles, and Yuuji still feels like the small gesture is illegal. “Right.”

Yuuji just wishes that he was a year older, focusing on his engineering and mechanics homework, and not aching to see his boyfriend. He wishes he was on the same level as him, just a little.) .

“He’s not answering my texts.” Yuuji states, staring down at his phone incredulously. “What the fuck. Kazuma, did you tell him something? I swear to God- I know he talks to you when I don’t reply in twenty minutes.”

“Not my fault that he thinks that you’re on your phone enough that if you don’t reply, you’re either dead or have been kidnapped.” Kazuma rolls his eyes, looking down at the _seen_ message on Yuuji’s phone. “Calm down, the time difference is stupid and it might not even be your birthday in America.”

“He saw my message,” Yuuji says, “It’s been three hours. The longest he went without replying was two and a half.” He glares at his phone, throwing it on his bed and draping his arms onto Kazuma’s lap, as the latter continued to work on his calculus homework. “What if he’s cheating on me with someone who’s better at volleyball?” He moans out. “What if he saw some Oikawa Tooru lookalike and followed him but he ended up getting beat up in an alley? Kazu, if he skypes me later tonight and he’s bleeding- I don’t know… what I’ll… do…”

Yuuji pauses at the thought, biting his lip. Kazuma quirks an eyebrow towards his best friend and captain, and snaps his fingers. “Anyways!”

“Calm down there, Paranoid-Housewife-Barbie.”

Yuuji pouts. “Anyways, Kazu, it’s already twelve! He doesn’t have practice on Sundays until like, two, and that’s a normal day. He should be coming home soon.”

Kazuma sighs, staring down at his friend who was sighing miserably. “Why are you such a fucking loser indoors. I wish that you were Cool Teru all day, so I don’t have to deal with your whiny ass after school hours.”

Yuuji ignores him, biting his best friend’s leg in retaliation, again ignoring Kazuma’s exclamation of “Whoa, okay! I hope Ushi likes that because I don’t. Save that for his bedroom.”

Yuuji only sticks out a pierced tongue, stands up, and sits on Kazuma’s lap. “I love you,” Yuuji says, in English with a heavy accent.

“You’re a piece of shit.” Kazuma replies back in English smoothly, in a barely noticeable accent.

  
  
  
  


Later that night, Wakatoshi is skyping with him through grainy phone screens, covered in blankets. One in the morning, one in the night. “How was your day?” Wakatoshi asks, his distorted voice barely passing through Yuuji’s shitty headphones. “We won the tournament.”

“It was good,” Yuuji replies, “I got worried when you didn’t reply to my text earlier.” He admits.

“Sorry…” Wakatoshi’s eyes dart to the side and he smiles at something off screen. “I was distracted.”

In Yuuji’s mind, _OIKAWA TOORU LOOKALIKE,_ is blaring through his mind in neon signs. “Don’t tell me you’re cheating on me,” Yuuji teases him. When Wakatoshi freezes for a moment, Yuuji stares at him through the camera in surprise.

He ends the call when Wakatoshi ends up calling out, “Wait, Yuuji-” and turns off his wifi to prevent Wakatoshi to message him.

A moment later, he texts Kazuma five words.

 ** _> >To: Kazu-m8 [00:45]_** ** _  
_** _Oikawa Tooru Lookalike is real._

Kazuma replies five minutes later.

 ** _> >From: Kazu-m8 [00:50]_** ** _  
_** _Teru I fucking swear to god you’re overthinking this and you probably overreacted and ended the skype call with him or smtg_  
_Also._  
_happy birthday u fucker ur overthinking shit again_

  


“Happy birthday!” Is the first thing he hears when Yuuji wakes up the next day. He sees black hair with an innocent face peer down at him, a pair of brown haired boys, one a mature, growing man, the other Kazuma, looking at him with identical grins, and the smell of burning wax falling onto whip cream covered waffles with strawberries on the side.

Yuuji rubs his eyes tiredly, giving his best friends and family members a big grin, and yawns. “Thanks.” He says, “Now get out because I need to get dressed.”

His mom tsks and threatens to throw the plate of waffles down jokingly. “Morning Yuu-chan!” She greets him, “You better get up or else I’m giving this to Chiyo.”

“I’m changing my name.” His brother announces. “I hate it.”

“Too bad.” His mother chimes, “You keep it if you still want to go to school.”

Takaharu lays down on Yuuji’s bed. “You know, kaa-san, if you were a setter in volleyball, I would think that I would be in love with you. You’re everything I want in a woman! Someone who can cook, clean, roast their children on a daily, casual basis, and has a tongue sharper than the knives she uses.”

“If I’m the ideal woman,” Yuuji’s mother giggles, “I think it would be better to find your ideal man.”

“But he’s _taken._ Kaa-chan, I told you!”

“Oh right, because you were too slow.”

“KAA-CHAN.”

Yuuji laughs, and maybe today will be a good day.

  
  
  
  


He hates the day already, when he gets body slammed by Arata, the _lightest fucking libero on the earth,_ and ends up bumping into his English teacher, a bitchy foreigner who thought that a thumbs down meant something as mundane as _bad job,_ thus giving a thumbs down to him as soon as he had answered a question wrong.

The same English teacher, without knowing the _meaning of the thumbs down still_ gives him a said cursed action. “That’s bad, Yuuji.” She says.

“I’m sorry,” He replies in English, because any conversation with her has to be in her language. “I won’t do it again.”

Arata is still hanging on his body like a koala when Yuuji steps into the room, and Takaharu is just texting his newest target in the corner of the room, while Rintarou, Katsumichi, Nobuyoshi and Kazuma were trying to play a two-on-two game.

(“I saw this team on TV, versing this really cool catlike team,” Kazuma exclaims, “They used these weird tactics to get into their opponent's head.”

“I don’t think we should do that in a match.” Yuuji says, and Kazuma nods.

“Oh, dude, _nah._ I was just thinking of using it in practice matches, so if it happens to us, if we end up going to nationals and facing that team, we can be prepared.”

Yuuji grins, “I don’t mind that.”)

He sees Katsumichi near tears, Nobuyoshi is turning red, Rintarou beginning to laugh so hard that he ended up getting hit in the face with Katsumichi’s special attack called the _‘Tear-filled Hope Spike’._

Kazuma takes his phone out in time, and records the entire scene.

Yuuji asks himself if he can really survive the day.

  
  
  


Engineering class is easy, he flies by physics and mechanics is always fun for him. Math comes by easy, but he has home ec and English, which are the only subjects that are really stopping him from graduating with a grade good enough to at least get accepted to a university in Tokyo. He didn’t plan on telling Wakatoshi this plan, or anyone else, really, because if he had told anyone he felt like there would’ve been a pressure that would’ve been accidentally put onto him. It’s either a do or don’t, and their top choices for universities are already being asked.

“Are you really going to be okay?” Takaharu asks, when Yuuji finally settles himself down in his seat when their english teacher comes into the room, scanning the room with her fake fashion glasses.

He sees a small, miniscule indent on her nose, and he smirks. She’s got a piercing, hey? “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

It’s okay the second week of his third year classes, how bad could they be?

  
  
  


English was a bitch.

  
  
  


Yuuji comes to practice with three confession letters, and roughly about five bruises forming in various parts of his body. Just because it’s his birthday, girls (and boys) think that Yuuji will give them a chance.

It’s a nice effort, because Yuuji knows how many times he tried that trick, but it doesn’t work because he has a boyfriend that may or not may not be canoodling with an Oikawa Tooru lookalike that is in America.

“Someone got busy,” Rintarou says, gesturing to the forming bruise on Yuuji’s cheek.

“You too,” Yuuji smirks. Rintarou, with a purpling bruise from this morning’s hope-filled spike, “you feeling better?”

“Yeah,” Rintarou moved his jaw for a moment, “Just a little sore now.”

“That’s good.” They stared at each other for a moment.

“Don’t.”

Rintarou jumps forward, onto his captain and latches himself onto Yuuji. “I made a bet with Arata about who can stay on you longer. He lasted around eight minutes, so I’m going for nine.”

Yuuji looks at his teammate, looking at him with an innocent smile. “Try not to knee me in the balls.” He says, and proceeds to walk around with his friend hanging down his front like an overgrown baby.

“No promises.”

  
  
  


Rintarou lasts eight and a half minutes. Arata pays Yuuji with three bills of ten thousand yen.

  
  


The practice runs smoothly enough, but by the time Katsumichi tries beating the high score of a good twelve minutes, forty-five seconds of hanging onto him, reached by Takaharu and a well-timed pair of puppy dog eyes, accompanied by the pout.

(“I hate you,” Yuuji states, trying to practice setting with the _actual setter_ on his torso, hanging down. “I hate you so much and you are never allowed back into my house.”

“Kaa-chan will let me in. She loves me.” Takaharu says, with his head buried in the crook of Yuuji’s neck.

“She loves me more.”

“That’s why she always makes my favourite food the night before so you can bring it to school the next day.”

“Fuck you.”)

“What is the point of this?” Yuuji asks, tired from running away from his friends that were trying hard to climb onto him like he was some kind of fucking _tree._ “Guys, practice was over an hour ago.” He states. “I need to get home, or else Wakatoshi might call me on skype and I won’t be able to answer.”

“Leave your dick alone for a night,” Nobuyoshi calls out, putting away the last of the volleyballs. “I don’t think your precious Ushiwaka will worry too much about you not answering. Did he even get to wish you happy birthday yet.”

Arata, Katsumichi and Kazuma sent the wing spiker a dirty look. “He was busy, probably.” Yuuji replies, laughing nervously. “I ended up overreacting again last night, but he wasn’t on this morning so I don’t know if he was able to message me today.” He looks at the clock on the wall, _7:03._ “We have to leave now, I have to close the gym.” He lifts up the keys in his hands, and his friends slump their shoulders.

He gives them a wolfish grin when they exit the gym one by one. “Want to go to karaoke?”

His teammates’ yells of excitement and joy brings a genuine smile on his lips, and he closes the gym for the night as his friends head up to the changing rooms, talking animatedly.

When he gets to the changing room, the first thing he checks is his phone, practically beelining for his bag. Kazuma snickers from behind him and throws a smelly, sweaty old practice jersey at his captain. “Chill out with your thirst, my dearest captain.”

Yuuji points to Takeharu in exasperation, who finished taking a picture of his body with his shirt off, biting his lip. “This guy is practically sending nudes!”

“First of all,” Takaharu starts, “that is very illegal and my pretty ass cannot land in a jail cell yet.”

The ‘ _yet_ ’ floats in the air between all the players.

“Anyways, I’m sending it to my boyfriend, because he likes my sweaty body.”

“I’m calling the police.”

“Yuuji already has his phone out.”

“Naw man, Teru will probably end up snapping a picture of his dick or something worse to his boyfriend,”

Yuuji flushes, “We never did anything like that yet.” He says, quietly at first, but the moment the words leave his mouth everyone is staring at him with dropped jaws and disbelieving looks.

“No fucking way.” Nobuyoshi says. When Yuuji nods slowly, he reaches into his bag and takes his wallet out. The other members of the team crowded around each other with their wallets as well, pushing and shoving while Yuuji stood there with red tipped ears, staring at his teammates in confusion. Kazuma leans towards his friend, holding his hand out as their teammates placed a wad of bills in his hand..

“What..?”

“They bet on if you ended up having skype sex,  if so, how far you got.” Kazuma tells him, “I was the only one who bet you didn’t do anything because you probably would cry if Ushiwaka told you that you were being a bad boy and would’ve ended the call, then jacked off to slow songs while crying.” Yuuji is scared about how much Kazuma knows about him- also scared of the fact that it’s likely.

“Too much information, dude.” Takeharu exclaims, “But dude, you really haven’t? I mean, neither have I, but you and Waka haven’t tried?”

“No.” Yuuji buried his head in his hands. “I’d rather not talk about my sex life with my boyfriend, thank you very much.”

“You mean lack of?” Rintarou snickers. The room bursts into rowdy laughter, and hurriedly, Yuuji gets dressed so he doesn’t have to suffer through this conversation.

He opens his phone to check his messages, but all he sees is a shaky selfie of him and Wakatoshi together. No notification. Yuuji sighs, putting his phone into his pocket, and heads out of the clubroom, waiting for everyone to file out so he can close the doors. “Let’s go to karaoke, yeah?”

“Yeah!”

  
  
  
  
  


Kazuma sings an old song, it’s the first thing they do as soon as they reached the karaoke room, and he sings this old jazz tune to show off his English skills. His range is too low for it, but everyone makes it a group effort to record him trying to reach the highest note in the song, voice effectively cracking into a screech.

“Your turn,” Kazuma says, picking a random song and tossing the mic to Yuuji.

Yuuji, by any means, isn’t good at singing. His voice cracks, and it’s out of tune half the time, but he still sings those shitty pop tunes that he dedicated to Wakatoshi in the beginning.

“For you, Toshi!” He exclaims, and he dives right into a song way out of his vocal range. He basically spends the entire time jumping and screeching at the top of his lungs, his friends singing along out of tune.

He gets a good 59 as a result, so they all order a new round of drinks in glee.

When he gets to his seat, face flushed, there’s a message on his phone from Wakatoshi.

 ** _> >From: Wakatoshi<3 [20:05]_** ** _  
_** _I like your singing._

Slowly, he looks up from his phone, noticing the sudden silence in the room. He looks at Kazuma, who has a smirk on his face, Takeharu has a wide, cheesy grin, and the others have similar looks to the two of them.

“What?” Yuuji asks, then all of a sudden a giant shadow is casted over him, covering him from the bright light of the room. He turns his head, and his jaw drops.

Wakatoshi is there, holding a giant teddy bear with a little tuff of blond hair at the top of it’s head. “Happy birthday,” Wakatoshi says, and Yuuji is so surprised that he drops his phone and jumps to hug his boyfriend.

“What-- How- when--?” He sputters out, but Wakatoshi is holding him tight with the bear in between, he’s laughing at Yuuji’s reaction.

“I got an early flight out, so I left two nights ago, which was why I wasn’t able to get your messages. I’m not cheating on you,” Wakatoshi paused for a second, “With an Oikawa Tooru lookalike.” His boyfriend snickers again, and Yuuji’s teammates are snapping pictures and posting them on their stories.

Yuuji sends a middle finger over Wakatoshi’s shoulder. Behind him. Kazuma laughs.

“I missed you.” Yuuji says, and Wakatoshi’s grip tightens.

“I missed you too.” He whispers back, kissing Yuuji’s forehead lightly. He lets go for a second though, to put down the stuffed animal and to find his own spot on the couch. Kazuma took it to his own liberty to take the bear and began to hug it from behind.

Yuuji found his spot on Wakatoshi’s lap, and embarrassingly sat down on it while Arata, surprisingly, wolf-whistled when Wakatoshi snaked his arms around Yuuji’s waist..

Yuuji glares at Rintarou, who looks away. “You did this,” He hisses, but his boyfriend tightens his grip when Yuuji begins to wiggle out of his grip. “YOU RUINED HIM.”

Takeharu never put down his phone during the entire exchange.

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Happy birthday again.” Wakatoshi says, dropping off Yuuji at his house. “Sorry I was late. Your teammates definitely helped me with this, though, especially Bobata-san.”

“It’s okay,” Yuuji says, but he turns his head away for a second, hiding the blush on his face, “I would’ve been fine with you just sending me a message. You didn’t need to come here, since you probably have to do a lot of makeup work for school now. _And_ because of your tournament.”

“Yuuji,” Wakatoshi states. “I wanted to do this.” He gives him a small smile, leaning forward to press his lips against his forehead, and mutters, “I missed you.”

“We’ll see each other for the summer.” Yuuji promises. “You can come visit.”

“I’ll be helping with Shiratorizawa practices, if I have the time to visit.”

“I’ll plan a practice game between us, then. So you can visit.” Yuuji places the gigantic bear down to wrap his arms around Wakatoshi’s waist. “I don’t mind if you don’t have the time, because we can still talk to each other like this.” His boyfriend laughs.

“Yuuji, you’re such a sap.”

“Says the one who planned this entire thing.” He gestures to the bear beside them, staring at him with black beady eyes, “Thanks for today.”

“It’s nothing. It’s just something for you to remember me by, since I might not always have the time to come visit, or skype.” Wakatoshi leans down to kiss Yuuji’s cheek. “I’ll still love you even if I can’t do that. I know how you overreact.”

“You’re lame.” Yuuji laughs. “I love you too.”

“It’s not like I’m wrong.” Wakatoshi says. “I won’t be wrong when it comes to you.”

“ _Stop. Oh my god.”_ Yuuji pushes himself away from his boyfriend, smacking the arm at grips tighter. “You’re so cheesy, shut up.”

“You love it.” Wakatoshi bit Yuuji’s ear playfully.

_Don’t moan. Don’t moan. Don’t--_

Yuuji never had good self control.

Wakatoshi grins.

“You _are_ eighteen…”

“ _No._ I’m seventeen still. Toshi, you have to _chill._ ”

“I know, I know.” Wakatoshi sighs, putting his chin on top of Yuuji’s head, ignoring the latter’s protests.”I don’t want to leave.”

“Leave tomorrow.” Yuuji says, “You can stay over, my brother would want to verse you at Super Smash Bros again. How did you get so good?”

“Satori and Eita had constant battles with it. The reason why I’m so good is because they would only accept the fact they lost is if I was the one who beat them. So I ended up getting pretty okay at it.”

Yuuji nods. “Understandable. Now are you going to come inside? I think my mom has a birthday cake waiting for me.”

“Let’s go.” Wakatoshi nods, and they open door.

“Oh thank god! I was thinking I had to go outside with a spray bottle and a condom!”

_“MOM.”_

**Author's Note:**

> i love using lowkey angsty songs to title my fics that was humorous and not at all angsty. also very deep but honestly this has like 20 sex jokes in here i dont know man
> 
> also yes i know i say its ushiteru but its like 10 percent ushiteru and 90 percent shit jokes and talking abt ushiteru but ykw i may or may not have a sequel planned for this involving car trips and bad phone calls ok BYE
> 
> twitter, tumblr, all that jazz: haarucchii


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